


after it was over

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Drabble Sequence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 17:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5937685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I never loved you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the playground

**Author's Note:**

> The first three chapters were originally posted on tumblr, so they might be familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "things you said after it was over" from sapphireglyphs.

“Jemma,” Grant says. His surprise isn’t feigned, but it quickly morphs to anger. He looks to the shadowy stairs. Did Coulson force her down here to try getting more information out of him? Is he really so determined to protect Skye that he’d send _Jemma_?

“Don’t,” she says, drawing back half a step. One of her hands lifts to stop him from speaking. “You don’t have to tell me you only talk to Skye, I know.” There’s a world of pain in the last two words.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice soft with shame.

She smiles sadly. “No, you’re not. But I didn’t come down here for more of your lies.” He opens his mouth to ask what she _did_  come down here for, but she cuts him off. “Just- just listen, all right?”

Now he steps back, opening his arms as if granting her the floor.

She takes a moment to compose herself. One of her hands reaches for the back of the lone chair sitting outside his cell. Whatever she’s here about, it’s taking quite a toll on her. Or maybe that’s just him.

Finally she meets his eyes, her chin hardening. “I never loved you.”

He can’t help the raised eyebrows, but he keeps the laugh from bursting from his throat. If she thinks throwing his own words back at him will hurt - well, she might be right, but only if he believed her. He’s got months of her smiles and touches and words from her own mouth to prove she _did_ love him - a lot, actually. He almost feels bad about that.

“The man I loved,” she goes on carefully, “never existed. You fabricated him and you used him against me like a weapon. I loved him - I _love_ him - more than I can say, but I never loved _you_.” She drags in a breath. “Just like you never loved me.”

He wonders if that’s the first time she’s ever said it out loud, actually admitted that his feelings were a lie. She’s pale and she’d probably be shaking if she wasn’t holding that chair so tight.

“Why are you here, Jemma?” he asks gently. “Has something happened? Are you-” He smiles. “Are you looking for permission to move on?” Outwardly, he’s calm as can be, but his heart has sped up. From confusion? He’s not sure what the play is here and that puts him at a disadvantage - a greater disadvantage - that’s gotta be it.

A strangled laugh erupts from her. “No. No, I just … needed to get my head on straight, I suppose, before …” Her laugh has finally gotten her eyes off him and they’ve landed a few feet to his right, on the spot he fell after slamming his head into the walls. He’s wondered if she was the one always patching him up, now he knows.

It must be killing her.

But his last attempt was weeks ago, so that’s not what’s brought her down here.

“’Before’?” he prompts.

She shakes her head and drags her eyes back to him. “It’s none-” Her gaze flickers back towards the spot on the floor, scrubbed clean of his blood. “I’m leaving. And Trip’s not always here and it’s something of a secret that you’re down here at all - Coulson worries some of the other agents might object to keeping a traitor alive - so whatever you’ve been up to with your ‘suicide’ attempts-”

He can _hear_ the air quotes in her voice. It’s so unlike her to make light of someone’s trauma that she might as well have dropped the barrier and slapped him in the face. 

“I’ve been-” He cuts off to amend his harsh tone. “I’ve been trying to get my own head on straight,” he says more quietly. “It’s not always easy, not with all I’ve done, with no one to-”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, the remorseful routine. I wish I could say it was at all helpful.” That last part isn’t for him, it’s for her. He takes a step closer to get a better look at her. _What_ is she here for?

“Take my words to heart or not, it’s your decision, but don’t go blaming me if next time there’s no one around to save your life.”

She turns for the stairs without restoring the barrier to its opaque setting. It gives him a chance to notice her stride. It’s different than it used to be, stronger. It’s the same way Skye’s body language changed in her first few weeks training with him.

“Jemma,” he calls. She doesn’t face him again, but she does stop on the stairs. Probably right about now she’s regretting leaving him with the open view. “It’s not safe out in the world anymore.”

She smiles over her shoulder, a thin, pained little thing that makes his gut twist. He knows before she speaks what she’ll say. They’ve had this exchange before, back at the Hub, only then it was her trying to stop him from leaving to take John to the Fridge.

“It never was,” she says sadly.

He watches her climb the final steps. “Be careful.”

  



	2. providence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "things you said too quickly" from safelycapricious and takes place _prior to_ the previous chapter.

A shadow fills the doorway to Grant’s right.

“Oh!” Jemma. Good. For half a second he was worried it might be May coming back. “Grant! I didn’t see anything! You. I mean, I didn’t see _you_. There. Here.” She takes a deep breath. “All the empty space is a little overwhelming, don’t you think?”

He lets the wire fall from his fingers. The sound of it striking the metal sink is mostly lost under the running water, but Jemma cringes like she knows what it is. He turns the taps and shakes out his hands before grabbing a towel from the shelf.

“Have you seen Skye?” she asks. “Or May?”

If she hadn’t already given herself away a million ways - keeping her distance from him, her laughable lie, she didn’t see anything (oh, _Jemma_ ) - the unnaturally high-pitch to her voice would now.

“May left,” he says and gets to see horror flicker over her face. The smile, already incredibly fake, is completely unconvincing when it reappears. “But I think Skye might be on the Bus. We can go check. I wanted to ask her about that satellite hack anyway.”

“Oh no. That’s quite all right. I’m sure you’re - busy.” She winces when he tosses the towel after the wire. She is so _bad_ at this. Seriously, who cleared her for field work? “And you should be resting besides, not traipsing around looking for Skye.”

“I can rest on the Bus.” He smiles warmly. “Maybe do some not-so-restful things?”

“You are in no shape to-” The fond tone cuts off abruptly. “No. You should- you should eat! Rebuild your strength. And I’ll send Skye to you after I find her.”

“All right. But how about instead, you come with her? I’ll whip us all up something special.”

She nods and steps carefully back out of the doorway. “Sounds good. I’ll hurry.” No goodbye kiss, no reminder to watch he doesn’t pass out over the cutting board or stove. It’s like she’s not even trying.

He crosses the room on silent feet once she’s out of sight. A glance around the corner and he’s running flat-out after her. She has to slow down to take the corner, but he has no plans to turn and catches up to her easily. 

He pushes her a little more roughly than he needs to. She’s stronger than she looks, but still not strong enough to beat him back. The shock of hitting the wall keeps her still long enough for him to pull the ICER from the waist of her jeans and to crowd her with his body.

A heartbroken cry escapes her and her eyes are fixed firmly over his shoulder. A week ago, if anyone had elicited that sound from her, he’d have killed them - or come pretty damn close. Now there’s no need for pretending anymore.

“Security feed?” he asks. She flinches at the sound of his voice, or maybe it’s just his bored tone. He leans into her a little when she doesn’t answer right away.

She nods instead of speaking. She’s probably having some trouble holding it together right now, doesn’t trust her voice. 

Or she’s just saving what little control she has for more important matters. “Are you going to kill me?”

He lets himself smile - _really_ smile - and laces his fingers in her hair the way he has a million times to tip her head back for a kiss. He doesn’t kiss her now - she wouldn’t want him to and he’s not particularly inclined himself, not when he can still taste Skye in his mouth. Instead he rests his forehead against hers. “Only if you make me, baby.”

 


	3. elsewhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "things you said when you were looking to win me back" from thestarfishdancer.

“Grant?” She sounds so small - and looks it, curled up like that in the corner of the passenger seat - but her voice is a lot more stable than it was when she first woke up. And she used his first name. Definitely an improvement.

“Yeah, baby?” 

She twitches at the endearment and has to take a moment to compose herself. “At Providence, after- after-”

“After I killed Koenig?” He’s got an idea where this is going, but he needs to know where she’s at with it before he can start fixing things.

Her hand - the one not curled protectively beneath her breasts - fists over her knee. “No. Yes. After  _you_ knew that _I_ knew.”

“Ah.” Right. That. He figured she’d have some things to say about the way he treated her there.

“You said you’d only kill me if I- if I _made you_.”

“Jem-”

She turns to face him. “I’m asking you to kill me. Please.”

Grant’s lungs tighten and his heart beats loudly in his ears. He can’t look at her, so he focuses on searching the road for a turn-off that won’t draw them too much attention. 

“Grant,” she pleads. “I saw Donnie Gill after he was brainwashed and I’m well aware of HYDRA’s attitude regarding moles. _Please_. I know you never loved me, never even _liked_ me, but that will make it easier, won’t it?”

Fuck it. He spins the wheel sharply to the right, sending up a wave of dust as he pulls them off the road. The cloud around them darkens the interior of the stolen car, casting Jemma in ghostly shadows when he reaches out to cup her face in his hands. 

“I am _not_ going to _kill you_ ,” he says. He’s shaking. He’s actually, physically shaking now. He breathes deep, trying to push it down so he doesn’t scare her. “And I’m not handing you over to HYDRA either. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

Her face moves between his palms, shaking back and forth in a silent denial. He smoothes his thumbs over her cheeks. He has a plan for this. Quiet, secluded spot. All the creature comforts he can manage. A whole big speech. But if she’s this far gone from him? He’s gonna have to improvise things a little.

“I love you,” he says. Holding her the way he is, he can feel her breathing stop and see the denial in her eyes. “I know. I _know_. I lied to you and I hurt you and I let Skye get in my head and mix me up. It took me a long time down in that cell to figure out how I really felt.” He pushes her hair back behind her ear. “I’m sorry for that, for ever letting anything come between us, for all the time I wasted. But I’m gonna make it up to you. You’ll see.”

Slowly, she leans back, pulling away from his touch. She looks- He doesn’t wanna think what the expression on her face means, but it’s not a good one.

“I was a _mark_ ,” she says, her voice shaking again. Damn. He was hoping to avoid any relapsing there. “I was a _mission_. You never loved me. You said so yourself.”

“I was _confused_. Skye was-” No. No, he’s not gonna bring up Skye again. Not a good idea to bring up the other woman when he’s trying to fix things. “Do you remember what you said to me?” he asks more calmly. “After the berserker staff? When I told you that all the terrible things I’d done undercover were a part of me? That even though those people I pretend to be aren’t _me_ , the things they do are still on my head?”

If she weren’t his strong Jemma, she might be on the verge of crying, but she bites her lip and holds it in like a brave soldier.

“You told me that the good things they did - that every good part of those, frankly, terrible people - came from me. So no, I’m not the guy you knew on the Bus, but whenever he loved you? That was me. And whatever you loved about him?” He shrugs, and turns on the windshield wipers to clear away what’s left of the dust.

She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even move. That’s good. That means she’s thinking about what he’s said. She’s smart, she’ll come around. She just needs some time away from the team, away from SHIELD and HYDRA and the whole global mess. And he’ll make sure she has all the time she needs.

 


	4. everywhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a little different. It was written for shineyma's 26 sentences meme over on tumblr, which is 26 prompts and one sentence written for each. I've broken them up into three sections for time line clarity. 
> 
> thestarfishdancer prompted any of my existing 'verses and I asked shineyma to choose for me. (In her defense, she gave me four choices and I picked from there.)
> 
> **Take what you will, leave what you won't, choose whichever ending you prefer.**

 

**pre-uprising**

 

**Beginning**

Even though she’s changed out of her ocean-soaked clothes and is wrapped in a warm towel with the heat blasting, she can’t stop shaking, can’t get warm at all, can’t stop her stomach from rolling like she’s still twisting in the air, can’t get Fitz’s screams or the wind or the buzzing of her own bones out of her head, and she’s not sure she can even _see_ the Bus again, let alone board it and she _can’t stop shaking_ \- and then Ward is there, solid and sure, his hands on her face and his mouth against hers and suddenly he’s the only thing in her head.

**New**

She’s not sure she can do this - not when they’ve been more or less together for only two weeks and he’s nearly died _three times_ \- but then he catches her hand to let her know he’s still here and she doesn’t know how she could not.

**Kitchen**

The schedule Coulson drew up on day one (well, day two because it had to be revised once Skye joined them), has them making dinner in pairs (to bolster camaraderie or some such) and whenever it’s her and Grant’s turn, there’s a bit of drama what with Skye alternating between calling them cute and joining Fitz in his gagging.

**Energy**

The first time they sleep together on the Bus, it’s when he’s so damn tired from three days of chasing arms dealers that he didn’t bother with his check-up and she bursts into his quarters to insist he get it; they both wake up ten hours later, neither with any idea how they went from arguing about his health to falling asleep in the narrow bed.

**Please**

She’s a mark, a mistake he made and now maintains to keep his cover, but that doesn’t mean he can’t _like_ her, can’t file away the memory of her nonsensical begging in the days after the berserker staff to satisfy him when he doesn’t have its influence to hide his true desires behind.

**Celebrate**

The morning after they rescue Coulson (afternoon really, between days’ worth of missed sleep and endless debriefs at the Hub), Jemma shows him just how relieved she is to have their little family safe and sound and together again - several times.

**Joke**

Grant Ward is a stick in the mud, which is hell on him dating Jemma because the real Grant Ward wants nothing more than to encourage her wicked sense of humor every time she dares show it.

**Action**

He punches out some level one nobody at the Hub who asks if FitzSimmons come as a package and Hand gives him a week’s suspension as punishment; Coulson gives Jemma a week’s vacation as reward.

**Quiet**

They’re reading - him another book from his SO’s required list and her Dr. Foster’s most recent paper - in the lounge and even though they’re in separate chairs, she’s sideways in hers, with her back low on the armrest and her legs hanging over into his lap so he can idly thumb her ankle joint between page turns; that’s when she realizes she loves him.

 

 

**post-uprising**

 

**Love**

“I never loved you,” he says and even though she knows he’s a liar and a traitor and a monster and nothing about him was real, it still tears her heart in two.

**Value**

“You’re alive because Garrett wants you working on the GH-325, no other reason,” he says with more meanness than is necessary (because Skye hates him) and with the same gently teasing tug on her hair he would have given her yesterday (just because he wants to).

**False**

She starts her days in the Playground with a firm reminder that she _does not love him_ , but it’s always rather muted by the unfortunate fact that she’s only able to start that way because he’s still the first thing she thinks about when she wakes up.

**Memory**

Fitz thinks she’s abandoning the Bus for the Playground‘s labs because she's moving on, but the truth is she _can’t_ work there anymore, not when every inch of the plane reminds her of him.

**Under**

The easiest part of going undercover in HYDRA is pretending she loved him enough to switch sides; the hardest is remembering he never loved her.

**Obsess**

He can’t stop thinking about her (gone, alone, _defenseless_ ) and when Coulson finally ( _finally_ ) sends Skye down to talk to him, it’s all he can do not to ask her where the _hell_ his girlfriend is.

**Ice**

She’s failed, she thinks as she dashes through the narrow halls and leaps through the doorways to avoid tripping - not in her mission (at least not the SHIELD one, she imagines Bakshi will be most displeased with how her attempts at calming Donnie have gone), but with the air growing colder every step she takes and ice crackling along the walls behind her, her first thought is that Grant would save her if he was here and that proves conclusively how she’s failed at cutting him out of her heart.

**Year**

She celebrates what would have been their one year anniversary by spreading a strain of flu virus around HYDRA HQ; she gets it too, but it’s worth it.

**Right**

Outwardly, she says he had no right to torture Bakshi for the way he treated her, while inwardly she can’t say she hates him for it.

 

 

**post-kidnapping**

 

**Team**

They tear HYDRA apart looking for any sign of her - or of Ward - but all it gets them is a slightly safer global stage and more frustrations than they started with.

**X-Ray**

He doesn’t mind that she spends the first three days in total silence since he’s plenty entertained just having her here (it helps that no matter what she does while she’s not talking to him, he can imagine her doing it naked); he’s less okay with things when she finally starts talking again and it’s to some imaginary Fitz.

**Desire**

The worst part - worse than being kidnapped, worse than having to listen to his attempts at explaining away his lies - is that she’s missed him, missed him so much that when he offers her the choice of sleeping alone or in the familiar comfort of his arms, every night she hesitates a little longer than the last before going to her own room.

**Give**

Her first escape attempt, while a spectacular failure, would be a lot more satisfying if he didn’t smile every time he catches his reflection and sees again the black eye she gave him.

**Secret**

She fakes sick for two days and when he comes to her offering comfort and asking what’s wrong, she doesn’t tell him that yesterday, when she asked him to pass the salt for her eggs, she realized she’d forgiven him; he can’t ever know.

**Wonder**

He’s staring like an idiot because this is a dream - this _has to be a dream_ \- but when he’s dreamed this moment before, she never had that new scar under her ribs or told him to keep quiet so he wouldn’t ruin it and she _definitely_ never cried; it’s still better than he ever imagined.

 

 

**the end**

 

**Zoom**

Once she stops pretending he isn’t getting to her, once she stops pretending she _cares_ , the days start to fly by until she can barely remember a time when she hated him.

**Holiday**

She doesn’t think about the happy days on the Bus or the months she spent quietly shattering after or even the last few weeks of imprisonment at his hands - no, all she thinks as she watches the flames rise higher and the smoke drift into the sky is that it’s a fitting end for him.

 


End file.
